Raḍāʿ

raḍāʿ, (Arabic: “to suckle”), in Islam, a legal relationship established between children when they are nursed by the same woman, the result being that they are forbidden to intermarry. Such a prohibition was prevalent in Arabian society even before Islam. Arabs equate such kinship with true blood relationship. In Mecca, the Arabs had a custom, still retained, of hiring professional nurses from among the Bedouins to suckle their children in the belief that a healthy Bedouin woman would raise healthier children. The Prophet Muhammad himself was said to have been suckled by a famous Bedouin nurse named Ḥalīmah bint Abī Dhuʾayb ... (100 of 181 words)